SpaceX and xAI join Pentagon contest for voice-controlled drone swarms
February 17, 2026
SpaceX’s xAI is joining the contest to develop intelligent drone swarms for the United States. There seems to be no stopping the future of AI-enabled weapons of war with the power to kill autonomously, with some resigning to “if you can’t beat them, you may as well join them.”
SpaceX’s xAI to compete for DoD drone swarm contract
According to new reporting by Bloomberg yesterday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI subsidiary are competing “in a secretive new Pentagon contest to produce voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarming technology.”
Bloomberg cited “people familiar with the matter” but did not provide any names or titles. The competition is for a six-month $100 million prize challenge that was launched in January.
The competition “aims to produce advanced swarming technology that can translate voice commands into digital instructions and run multiple drones,” according to the publication. Musk announced a few weeks ago that SpaceX and xAI will merge.
Bloomberg pointed out that Musk appears to have done a complete reversal of his previous position, saying that AI should not be used as “new tools for killing people.”
Ukraine's Mykhailo Fedorov shared a video of developmental tech being tested by at a Brave1 site: an FPV drone swarm, guided munitions that reportedly have automatic guidance capability and are intended for bomber drones, and a robotic dog intended for reconnaissance and… pic.twitter.com/5JQPfJtyvQ
— John Hardie (@JohnH105) October 30, 2024
Before the war in Ukraine, the topic of “swarming drones” became something of a cliché and buzzword. Swarming is hard, very hard. AI technology paired with drones is increasingly seen as the frontier of future warfare.
What is known about the drone swarm programme
The drone swarm competition was launched jointly by the Defense Innovation Unit. That unit is focused on including the participation of Silicon Valley startups and the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG).
DAWG was recently launched under the current Trump administration and is part of the US Special Operations Command. It is also partly continuing the work of the Replicator initiative launched during the Biden Administration, which seeks to produce many thousands of expendable autonomous drones.
Bloomberg says the effort will progress in five phases. It will start with developing software and progress to real-life testing. The aim is for the programme to be for offensive purposes, with a January announcement saying the human-machine interaction “will directly impact the lethality and effectiveness of these systems.”
A new AI Acceleration Strategy released by the Pentagon in January spoke of “unleashing” AI agents for the battlefield, all the way from planning military campaigns to potentially lethal strikes.
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Why drone swarming is hard
To date, drones are not swarming in combat, and the famous Chinese drone shows also do not count as swarming in the military sense. Those are simple, pre-programmed, centrally controlled spectacles with rigid paths, a single point of failure, no decision-making, and operating in a permissive environment.
There have been drone swarm trials in the US, China, and Israel, but there is nothing mature.
In a military sense, drone swarming refers to groups of drones that share information, make decentralized decisions (without a single master controller), adapt in real time to losses, jamming, and changing targets, and coordinate effects.
The concept draws from swarming seen in nature, think flocks of birds, schools of fish, bee swarms, and ant colonies. Drone swarms should not have a single point of failure.
Swarming drones don’t just do the same thing; they coordinate with some scouting, others jamming radars, others striking, and others relaying information.
Finally a realistic video that counters the nonsense from everyone saying the great China is invincible because drones. Yeah this is what happens when you turn the jammer on and this is just a low-grade jammer https://t.co/ptUuDFkpvO
— Intelschizo (@Schizointel) July 19, 2025
True miltiary swarming is extremely difficult. Overcoming jamming, operating in GPS-denied zones, electronically contested battlespaces, and developing robust algorithms for swarm intelligence is challenging. Bandwidth limits with many nodes sharing sensor data can saturate networks.
Photo: Ukraine MoD
